South Asia Citizens Web

A compilation of selected commentary on the continued tragic killings of the poor migrants on India Bangladesh border by the boder guards. This has now gone on for years. The killings must stop and the border guards prosecuted.

We urge you who have been invited to attend the fifth Galle Literary Festival (26-30 January 2011) to consider Sri Lanka’s appalling human rights record and targeting of journalists. Reporters without Borders said this about Sri Lanka in a recent report: “Murders, physical attacks, kidnappings, threats and censorship continue in Sri Lanka despite the end of the civil war. The most senior government officials, including the defence secretary (the President’s brother), are directly implicated in serious press freedom violations affecting both Tamil and Sinhalese journalists.”

We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country.

Sex, Death and the Gods - video

Interview with filmmaker Beeban Kidron, plus exclusive clips from her new film. Sex, Death and the Gods explores the complex world of India’s devadasi, girls devoted to a goddess and then sold for sex at puberty

Beeban Kidron’s film about the devadasi, Storyville: Sex, Death and the Gods, will be shown on BBC4 on Monday 24 January at 10pm

Southern India’s devadasi system, which ’dedicates’ girls to a life of
sex work in the name of religion, continues despite being made illegal in 1988

FS: What do you think is the way to stem the rising tide of religious extremism in Pakistan?

PH: If you want the truth: the answer is, nothing. Our goose is cooked. But well before the last liberal is shot or silenced, the mullahs will be gunning for each other in a big way.....To save Pakistan, what miracles shall we ask of Allah? My list has at least three.